Video Pick of the Week: Alí Arango Plays Barrios’ ‘Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios’

Tremolo, anyone? Not many pieces put a player’s tremolo skills to the test as much as  Agustín Barrios’ famous Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios, played here by one of our favorite young guitarists, the Cuban virtuoso Ali Arango, at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona this fall during the ongoing Maestros de la Guitarra festival series. Arango plays an Alhambra guitar and D’Addario strings. He was the winner of the 2017 Andrés Segovia International Classical Guitar Competition in Spain last January.

Besides being an outstanding solo player and a fine composer, Arango also manages to find time to be part of the the highly eclectic Traza Quartet (with violinist Ramses Puente, cellist Martin Melendez, and guitarist Junior Cesar Zambrana) and the Pyrophorus Guitar Duo with Josué Fonseca. In fact, if you have a moment, check out this wonderful Pyrophorus performance of Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1:

                                                                                                                                                     —Blair Jackson